The studies add to the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India's report that have pointed to numerous gaping holes in the implementation of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in anganwadis.
In October 2013, the CAG found that the March 2012 monthly progress report said that every third child in the state is underweight. Gujarat stood a poor 20th in the malnutrition scale in 2012 with Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand doing better in reducing malnutrition levels from 2007 and 2011.
Worse, Gujarat's figure of "severely malnourished" children (4.56 per cent) exceeds the national average (3.33 per cent). CAG said that 1.87 crore people had been deprived of the benefits of the ICDS scheme to promote holistic development of children, expectant and lactating mothers and adolescent girls. The state needs 75,000 anganwadi centres but only 67 per cent are running.
The organisations, which conducted the malnutrition surveys, point that there is a strong link between the state of the anganwadis and the extent of malnutrition in the state.
The first survey by the Suratbased Centre for Social Studies (CSS) found malnutrition levels in 849 children to be as high as 94 per cent. The children were in the age group of five years to 15 years and live in 20 villages of tribal-dominated Dediapada taluka (tehsil) of Narmada district in South Gujarat.
Some 96 per cent of the population living here is tribal. The CSS is an autonomous institute backed by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development and the state government.
A visit by this Mail Today correspondent to the tribal region of Deogadh Baria in Central Gujarat revealed that most villages here have little access to anganwadis as well as primary and community health centres. A cursory look shows that the public health machinery has not reached many parts of this region. The reasons for malnutrition are that most children cannot access the mid-day meal scheme and the anganwadis are in a pathetic state.
Another study carried out by Child Rights and You (CRY) among 249 anganwadis in 17 districts across the tribal belt, a whopping 65 per cent have no or very poor toilet facilities, 34 per cent lack working weighing scales to gauge a child's nutrition levels, 28 per cent are bereft of a regular health checkup and 30 per cent do not have utensils to prepare and serve food to children.
Ishwar Pawar, a tribal who heads South Gujarat's Adivasi Vikas Trust that conducted the last survey, said the state government agencies have been manipulating malnutrition figures in the tribal region. He said: "There is a huge gap in reality and the picture the government wants people to believe."
